Unintended Heroes

by Paul Vayro

Chapter Six

  “My two favourite heroes; slide inside and begin the ride.” Fut bobbed his head in welcome to Brick and Spiritwind. The two humans had taken the more traditional path of walking to Fut’s house. Fate and They had transported themselves.

  “It’s our honour.” Brick accepted the welcome and jived his way down the hallway towards the living room. Spiritwind’s beaming face followed closely behind. Fut closed the door and joined the jive train.

  Fut stood at an impressive six and a half feet and worked as the spreader of ‘cool’ across the planet Earth. His ample stride made short work of the hallway, arriving to find the party still negotiating the early awkward stages of any gathering. Irony and Karma were sat in the corner of cushions, chatting about this and that. They and Coincidence were on the nearby sofa, debating why that and this is far superior to this and that. Fate lay on the double hammock he had grown fond of. Brick had already occupied a section of cloth suspended from the ceiling by four high tensile strings. Spiritwind opted for a three foot high ball of jelly that moulded to the users body. Fut offered drinks and nibbles before returning to take his place on a giant pillow. Seeing everyone had arrived Fate prepared to stand. The nature of the hammock meant the process took a few minutes, but eventually he achieved his aim.

  “May I just say a few words about why we are gathered here, and wish our two heroes fortune on their adventure.”

  Irony groaned. She was only here for one thing, and as nobody in the room was a ten foot hunk in red lycra she was already feeling disappointed. The excessive amount she’d drank to calm her nerves didn’t help matters.

  “Thank you for your support Irony. It’s appreciated as always.” Karma defended her friend with a stare of implied threat. Fate cowered back into his speech. “We are here to wave off our new friends and saviours of our jobs on their second adventure. I’m sure you’d all like to join me in toasting their success.” Everyone raised their drink. Brick and Spiritwind looked at each other, unsure if it was accepted protocol to toast oneself. They drank anyway just to keep up appearances. “To Brick, Spiritwind, and success.”

  A murmur toured the room. Brick looked around. He wondered if Success was another concept who had decided to join them, and if she was open to flirting. He quickly realised it was strictly metaphorical.

  “Does anyone have any words of wisdom they wish to offer our friends? Tips on dealing with the universe they are about to explore perhaps?” Fate sat back down, safe in the knowledge all official duties had been fulfilled and he could return to drinking and relaxing. He attempted to appease Karma with a wink. Her response suggested it would be at least five minutes before he could look at her again.

  “I think it’s the universe that needs advice on dealing with those two.” Irony’s liquid bravado spilled out.

  “And what would that advice be?” Brick asked purely out of curiosity.

  “Don’t bother.” Irony snorted at her own perceived wit.

  “That’s vaguely amusing Irony. Have you been working on your insults?” Brick appreciated a good insult even when aimed at him.

  “Not really. I have been working on my punch though. Want to see that?” Irony waved her fist in front of her face. It only served to confuse her eyes.

  “Moving along.” Brick realised he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Irony and turned to Fate. “Will we get any gadgets this time? There has to be gadgets on a second adventure, surely. There must be a rule somewhere about that.”

  “No.” Fate kept his answer brief.

  “Gadgets are over rated.” They joined in the conversation. The glint in his eye promised wisdom of one sort or another. “You need at least a grade two rating for the right circumstances to arise for your highly situation specific gadget to be used. Grade one heroes are so focused on using their gadget they’ll activate their bouncy castle in a hat when trapped in a lift filling with poisonous gas. Castle fills the lift and suffocates them. Same as when a rhino charges them and they try and repel it with a handy gas mask in a watch. The best gadget is initiative.”

  “That may be true, but we both know initiative is nowhere near as cool as having a trampoline sewn in to your pants.” Brick offered his own wisdom in response.

  “There’s no arguing with something so true.”

  The room remained quiet except for the background beats. Thoughtful silence filled the gaps, or drunken confusion in the case of Irony. Spiritwind unloaded his pockets to the tune of several sausage rolls and a Cornish pasty. He had a pork pie somewhere but for the moment its exact location escaped him.

  “Sometimes I wonder why we even bothered to save the Earth. I could just about handle no money or women, but no gadgets when embarking on a new mission.” Brick huffed his concerns.

  “Sometimes I wonder why flies don’t just fly that little bit higher than a car windscreen. It’s not as though they can’t. They must have learnt by now.” They’s thought only inspired one reaction, it came from Fut.

  “May I be the provider of further drinks?” Everybody nodded eagerly. The awkwardness needed tackling swiftly. Fut stood and entered the bar area of his living room.

  Fate saw a chance to make amends with Karma and moved towards her. The smile she offered was balanced by Irony’s sneer. Sensing an argument, They and Coincidence guided the remote control sofa they were on over to Brick and Spiritwind.

  “Evening chaps.” Brick toasted their arrival with a cheese cracker, minus the cheese which he’d lost somewhere down his thigh.

  “And your good selves. Excited about a new adventure?” Coincidence opened the chatter with Brick.

  “It’s something to do I suppose. It’s hard to get too excited about something we have no idea about.”

  “Are you packed and prepared?” They moved on to a more practical query.

  “Again, we don’t know what we’ll need. So we thought we may as well take nothing and be equally unprepared for everything.” Brick responded whilst casually searching for his lost cheese.

  “It’s an unarguable logic.” They had nothing but agreement. “Probably as unarguable as the mysterious time of ten to ten playing a role in a further adventure.” They nodded slowly and knowingly.

  “Ignore him. He’s trying to spread his latest rumour.” Coincidence sat back. He knew They would reveal it once Brick showed his inevitable interest.

  “Not so fast Coincidence. They may be on to something. It’s all people are talking about after all the clocks were mysteriously changed to ten to ten the other week.” Brick’s inevitable interest duly appeared. Spiritwind continued snacking whilst watching the conversation unfold.

  “You know why the clocks were changed. You were there when Fate told Motivation to do it for no other reason than to keep her occupied.” Coincidence knew he was wasting his breath, but wasted it anyway.

  “Fate told us there was no reason but how can we be sure?” Brick applied the raise of an eyebrow he believed made everything a possibility.

  “I give in. Believe what you like.” Coincidence folded his arms in defeat.

  “So what’s this theory, They?” Brick sat forward, revealing the cheese he’d lost.

  “You know how the Earth takes three hundred and sixty five days and a quarter to complete a full lap of the Sun?” The nods mainly came from Brick. “Meaning the Earth needs leap years to reset time? Well where does that quarter of a day go before the leap year? We’re losing about a minute a day before getting it back.” Brick feigned outrage. Spiritwind picked a chunk of meat from his tooth. “I propose we lose thirty seconds around ten to ten each day. The disturbance this causes alerts us to check the time, which is why we always notice ten to ten for one reason or another and which is why the clocks were changed, to alert us to this fact.” They looked very pleased with him-self.

  “Would it not have been easier to let us know this with a short leaflet explaining it?” Coincidence already had a list of flaws he'd thought about, and raised one as Brick and Spiritwind let the idea
sink further into their minds.

  “You’re very naïve when it comes to conspiracy theories Coincidence. If you don’t have to re-interpret anything that happens in an inventive manner then it’s just a list of facts.” They defended his livelihood.

  “Sometimes the facts suffice.”

  “Obviously you’ve been broken by the man. You accept whatever ‘they’ want to feed you.”

  “But you’re ‘They’, and I know you’re trying to feed me a lie.” Coincidence unfolded his arms to protest.

  “Am I?” They tried his best potential truth face.

  “Yes.”

  “I feel for you my friend. It’s sad to see you broken into conformity.”

  “That makes sense actually They.” Brick had finished thinking and aired his conclusion. “It’s called cowboy time and everything. Which other time has its own name? Except noon I guess, and midnight.”

  “What do you mean it makes sense?” Coincidence tried one last appeal.

  “Well it sounds feasible.” Brick looked astonished at Coincidence’s doubt.

  “I give in all over again.” Coincidence folded his arms in frustration. Only the arrival of Fut with a fresh round of drinks saw his limbs unfold.

  Everybody thanked Fut and allowed the party spirit to grow; however with the approaching adventure in mind excessive behaviour was limited to nonsense conversations and only two games of dodge the orange. The grouping remained amicable enough to leave for Noel Hill as one. When a superstar of the universe is about to turn up it’s sensible to sit somewhere between sober and passed out in the corner dribbling. Everybody hoped they’d struck the balance to perfection.

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